


and it's breaking over me

by endquestionmark



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-22
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-05 19:26:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a smoky, gritty dive bar, the sort you only find when you’re actually looking for somewhere disreputable, and the sort that usually turns out to be quite reputable in its own way after all.  Clint stumbles into it accidentally on purpose.</p>
<p>“What's your name,” Clint says, adding a little belatedly, “I’m Clint.”</p>
<p>“Bruce,” the man says, and reaches forward to pluck the cigarette from Clint’s fingertips.  He takes a deep pull, then purses his lips - Clint gets a little distracted - and blows a smoke ring; it’s a little crooked, maybe a little smudgy around the edges, but still.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and it's breaking over me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [100demons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/gifts).



It’s a smoky, gritty dive bar, the sort you only find when you’re actually looking for somewhere disreputable, and the sort that usually turns out to be quite reputable in its own way after all.

Clint stumbles into it accidentally on purpose, because if he didn’t have a certain purpose he wouldn’t be able to find it; he isn’t really trying, though, he’s just looking for noise, for people to be around, so he won’t look down to find his fingers twitching against his thigh, won’t constantly be looking up to find a safe place to sit, because the ceiling will be right there.

There’s a pool table off in one of the shadowed corners, and Clint orders himself a triple whiskey and drifts over with the crowd, picks a cue out of the rack on the wall, and settles in to watch.

That’s what he does best, watch, even if he isn’t perched on top of the bar, god forbid, though it’s the highest point here, and he watches for little tells, drumming fingers, tapping feet, somebody else looking around like he is. Last thing he wants to do is try and hustle somebody who’s trying to hustle him - he’s pretty sure he’ll still come out on top, but still. Bad policy.

He lets his eyes flick around the tables, that player’s drunk, that one’s only buzzed, two who are working together, another who’s missing the simplest shots, a tremor in his left hand. A man with two hands on the felt-covered edge of the table, a woman about to spill her drink on her date, and then Clint looks back, because the man is squeezing the edge of the table hard, fingers pressing into the felt, and that’s got to hurt.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he says, letting his face go slack, smiling too wide, too sloppy. He hands his drink off to somebody behind him, hopefully somebody who’ll appreciate it, and wraps his hand around his cue, calculated, suggestive. “Want to knock some balls around?” There’s a round of laughter, weary and deprecating.

“You’re drunk,” the man says, “I could beat you with one hand tied behind my back,” and isn’t that a nice picture, right there. Clint isn’t faking the flush that rises to his cheeks - not much, anyway.

“Put your money where your mouth is,” he slurs, wobbling a little as he makes his way to the table.

“No thanks,” the man says. “Don’t need to rob a man to prove I’m better than him.”

“Killjoy,” Clint calls, but he’s already walking away, back to the bar. “God,” Clint says, “won’t anybody give a man a game?”

++

By the end of the night he’s made a few hundred, one game with the man with the tremor, two with the ones who are working together, and the bar is emptying out; there’s just the man, there, the one with the flexing hands, and the woman who did spill her drink on her date, and her slightly damp date, and somebody Clint doesn’t recognize, still playing.

“Gorgeous,” he calls again, because say what you like about Clint, he just doesn’t give up, “hey, offer still stands,” and he holds his cue out horizontally, lifts his hips to meet it, pulls it back and forth like a stripper’s silk.

“Sorry,” the guy says, “I’m going to have to call it quits,” and he throws a folded wad of cash into the middle of the table and goes to put his cue back in the rack.

“Outside, tiger,” Clint calls, and he might be halfway to the door, but he doesn’t miss the way the man’s hand slips, and the cue nearly falls before he catches it. So there’s something there - maybe the guy just likes to have wild hot sex, which Clint is totally down for, or maybe he actually has a thing for tigers, or, well. Who knows. Clint always liked the hands-on approach.

The guy takes a while to get outside, so Clint lights a cigarette, kicks one leg back against the wall, and inhales, exhales, watches the smoke form a cloud, blows a smoke ring.

“I could tell you how that works,” the guy says, from where he’s leaning against the wall, not three feet away from Clint.

“You snuck up on me,” Clint says, impressed. “There’s not many people can do that.”

“You can blow smoke rings,” the guy returns, “and act drunk better than half my friends.”

“Not good friends to have then,” Clint says, “who’s going to cover your back when you need a wingman?”

The guy goes a little quiet then, and Clint rushes to fill the silence. “Anyway, smoke rings,” he says, “guy I used to know taught me how to blow them. You just do this -” he purses his lips in an O “- like you’re sucking a cock, but, you know. And then you -” he puffs a breath out hard, and they watch another smoke ring rise up under the yellow of the streetlight, into the flat grey night. Too many lights in this city, from down here.

“Let me try,” the guy says.

“Tell me your name first,” Clint says, adding a little belatedly, “I’m Clint.”

“Bruce,” the man says, and reaches forward to pluck the cigarette from Clint’s fingertips. He takes a deep pull, then purses his lips - Clint gets a little distracted - and blows a smoke ring; it’s a little crooked, maybe a little smudgy around the edges, but still.

“Would you say we’ve covered the introductions?” Clint asks once the smoke has curled away into nothing. “Because I’ve got a room - it’s nothing special, but it’s somewhere, and I’d really like to take you there now.”

“Lead on,” Bruce says, blowing smoke out into the sticky summer night, and offers Clint back the cigarette, holding it up to his lips with two fingers. Clint takes it with his mouth, watches Bruce the whole time, sees the orange glow reflected in his eyes, thinks it looks like a wildfire.

++

Bruce never pushes, is what Clint notices, even with his shirt off and somewhere under the bed probably and his pants pushed halfway down his thighs, with Clint’s tongue in his mouth and his hand on his cock, and Clint knows from experience where all the calluses on his hands are, what they feel like. (What, he wasn’t the only archer in the circus, nor the only he’s met since. Which isn’t saying that he doesn’t know his own hands, but.)

And Clint - is never one to pass up a challenge, so he pushes Bruce flat on the bed, slides down his body, and licks just barely at the head of his cock, because he isn’t going to do anything else until Bruce has his hands fisted in Clint’s hair and fucks his mouth.

Clint pulls out every trick he knows - sucks on two fingers with Bruce’s cock, makes a ring of them and twists his wrist on every pull, follows his mouth up and down with them; flattens his tongue out and strokes it over the head, over the sensitive spot right underneath, but it’s only when he curls his lips over his teeth, tilts his head and swallows Bruce all the way down that Bruce gasps, curls his fingers through Clint’s short hair, rolls his hips into it.

His cock is heavy in Clint’s mouth and Clint can feel it nudge the back of his throat, so he swallows, lets the movement do the work for him, and Bruce honest-to-god jerks upward, and Clint knows his voice will be wrecked, but still. He works his tongue and Bruce starts making little desperate noises, little gasps and moans, and it’s completely worth it, it’s worth it when Bruce _keens_ , begins thrusting in earnest.

Clint takes it and takes it and swallows again, lets his lips slide, spit-slippery, around Bruce, and when Bruce comes he freezes, back arched, and Clint digs his nails into Bruce’s hips, swallows, licks his lips.

“God,” Bruce says, breathless, “Clint, god, I bet that’s actually how you learned to blow smoke rings,” and then he just comes back down to earth, thumps onto the sheets, and lies there boneless.

“You wish,” Clint says. “It’s okay to be a little rough with me, you know, I won’t break.”

And Bruce is very still now, not just unmoving, but still, and Clint knows still, he knows broken still and quiet still and this is not a good type. “Clint -” Bruce starts, and Clint cuts him off.

“Look,” he says, “it’s okay, whatever it is, I promise it’s okay, just let me -” and he settles over Bruce on his elbows, kisses him, lets him lick the taste of himself out of Clint’s mouth. “It’s fine,” he says again, and Bruce looks up at him, raises an eyebrow. “I want to fuck you,” Clint says, in a rush, “is that okay?”

“That’s more than okay,” Bruce says, smiling a little, lazy and sated. When Clint leans over, rummages through his duffle for lube (because okay, maybe it’s a little arrogant, but again he likes to be prepared), Bruce actually _bites him on the ass_ , and Clint falls off the bed.

“You fucker,” he says, rubbing at it.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” Bruce admits, “though we’re going to have to go with a brief definition of _a while_ , since I’ve only known you, what, two hours?”

“Imagine,” Clint says dryly, climbing back onto the bed. “By tomorrow we’ll be married and settled down in a house on the suburbs.”

“I’m not really the settling down type,” Bruce says, snatching the lube from Clint and popping the top. “Go on,” he says, nodding at the end of the bed. “Strip. Earn it.”

“God,” Clint says, “bossy,” and crawls off the bed again, pulling his shirt over his head.

“Wow,” Bruce says, “you’re a terrible stripper,” and then proceeds to get his pants off in what’s probably two milliseconds flat.

“Fine,” Clint says, prancing. “Get me a pole, watch my moves, why don’t you?”

“Oh, god,” Bruce says, “just _shut up_ , and he’s slicking up two fingers and reaching back, and Clint sort of forgets that he’s supposed to be stripping, because the expression on Bruce’s face is glorious and open, and he can barely see Bruce’s hand, but the way his hips are jerking back is enough for him, and he nearly trips over his own feet getting out of his pants.

“Graceful,” Bruce says, “like a swan.” His voice is steady but there’s something in it, like the sound a bowstring makes drawn taut, and it’s gorgeous, it’s beautiful, it’s something wild. Clint sinks to his knees there at the foot of the bed, one hand cupping himself, barely pressing, and watches Bruce finger-fuck himself open, watches his face, his eyes closed, his mouth barely open.

He loses himself a little, perhaps, because the next thing Bruce says is “I’m not going to fuck myself, you know, though I could, but you did express interest, so -”

“Right, yeah,” Clint says, “have I mentioned that you are gorgeous and amazing?”

“No,” Bruce says. “You mentioned that you were going to fuck me.”

“Jesus, okay.” Clint settles himself over Bruce again, slots their hips together; Bruce wraps a leg around his waist and tilts his hips up.

When Clint pushes in, it’s almost excruciating, keeping it slow, keeping himself together, and Bruce doesn’t help, fingers digging into Clint’s arms, eyes squeezed shut. When Clint bottoms out, he gasps, or maybe it’s Bruce; he can’t quite tell.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Jesus fuck,” Bruce says, “I’m not going to break, come on -” and Clint rocks his hips, pulls out a little, and Bruce makes this tiny breathy noise.

“You sure,” Clint asks, because hey, he’s a jackass, but not here. Not now.

“I’m fucking _sure_ ,” Bruce says, and flips them, because obviously he plays dirty as fuck. Clint respects that, since otherwise he’d be a massive hypocrite, but he can’t help groaning when Bruce sits up on his knees and _slams_ back down, enough that he presses Clint hard into the mattress, enough that Clint digs fingers into his hips.

“God,” Clint gasps, “you fucker,” and Bruce grins, teeth white and sharp, and leans down to bite at Clint’s collarbone, at his shoulder, leaves a trail of red marks even as he rolls his hips, and Clint doesn’t know which way to move, where to feel, what to do, so he wraps a hand around Bruce’s cock and jerks him _hard_ , sets a new rhythm, and Bruce growls in his ear.

“Come on,” Bruce says, voice pitched low, and Clint shudders. “Come on, I know you can, for me,” and Clint pulls him down, fingernails biting into his hips, rubs a thumb over the head of his cock; thrusts up again and again and comes blindingly hard, gasping.

When he comes back to himself, his hand is sticky and wet, and he wipes it on the sheets. Bruce rolls off of him and flops down in the wet spot; unfazed, he rolls back over, smearing come all over Clint’s belly.

“God,” Clint says, “that’s not fair,” and he laughs at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

“Clean up in the morning,” Bruce says, face muffled in the pillows. “Move and die.”

“God, pushy,” Clint says, as Bruce throws an arm across his stomach. “Fine.”

They fall asleep like that, sheets ruined, sticky summer air and drying come making it even more uncomfortable, and yet at some point Clint actually does sleep, so.

++

When he wakes up, Bruce is gone.

There’s a phone number on his bedside table, though, and a cup of water and also a cue ball which Bruce must have stolen from downstairs at some point, and Bruce’s bite marks and bruises are still all over his shoulders, his collarbone, so Bruce isn’t really gone, is he.

Clint showers the worst of the mess off and pulls on jeans and a shirt; he pockets the number and goes out to find coffee and food, in that order.

On the way downstairs, he presses fingers against the marks on his collarbone, cherishes the ache, smiles properly for the first time in a while.

++

“We need you to bring in the big guy,” Fury says to him.

“We don’t know where he is,” Natasha says (Tasha, Nat, Natasha, it’s all the same after a while.)

“I do,” Clint says, because maybe they don’t fuck - haven’t, since then, but he still knows. He cares. That’s how he keeps his ledger from bleeding out, gushing red.

He presses fingers to his collarbone, one tell he won’t get rid of, and smiles again, just a little.

**Author's Note:**

> Born of [this post](http://endquestionmark.tumblr.com/post/23505108944/stillsecretlycaptaindick-imagine-this-is) on tumblr, and then Plath went "hey, you know what you should write?"
> 
> Basically, this is my fic writing process. It works. I don't question it.


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